First thing that occurred to me when I took my first visit to problogger.net is that it simply mesmerized me. I’m fortunate enough to not encounter ridiculously and overly crowded advertisements since most of the websites, or weblogs, which I visited, do have these kinds of things. So, before I pour all of my insights into one section that could ruin this whole thing, let me break it down into major categories.

Website owner background

Firstly, Mr. Darren Rowse has been in the online trend for quite some time now. According to him, he “stumbled” on the blogging idea back in 2002 and, overtime, transformed himself from a part-time to a full-time blogger and actually started his own website to share his views on one particular subject, how to blog effectively. Mr. Rowse has three goals to make his website a part of the whole blogging venture; help people improve in their blogging skills, share experiences about the whole subject as well as promoting the blogging medium. The humble profile has provided me with exact notion that he takes his time considerably into making sensible and relevant blogs that talks about the importance of blogging as well as information and tips on how to blog effectively and with sense.

Appearance

I must say it’s a little bit over than average. The colors are well-picked and are well-blended. From my years of studying Fine Arts, I have been able to recognize how the colors should blend properly as well as the feeling of the whole interface since I’m also into online surfing. I have visited websites that have refreshing layouts and the fact that this is a blogging website makes it a bit of jampacked to look at since there are posted articles placed on the main webpage. However, Mr. Rowse was able to give time on the whole layout by pacing these contents into manageable sections that should be able to provide visitors simple usability.

On the top heading, the contents of the “archive, job board, blog, about and contact” was neatly presented to provide the visitor the easiest way to interact with the website. He dealt with the insertion of the “recent blogs” on the left part, his “video post” at center while the advertisements and search box on the right side. Also, when I first entered his website, I quickly noticed the “featured post” on the top part that simply catches attention with its appealing titles. When I scrolled down, (three scrolls are perfect for me since I’m one of those people who don’t like scrolling down) I saw a list of recent posts, categories, resources and brief profile. They were well-organized to simply give the visitor a relaxing space.

Blogs

If I were in an NBA Slam-Dunk contest, I would definitely give Mr. Rowse’s blogs a solid 10. But I wouldn’t know how much the other judges would give him since I really find his topics very interesting to read. Rich and sensible blogs are herein posted that will surely make visitors stay forever. The blogs are very worth-reading and it does give the readers some needed information and tips on how to be efficient when it comes to blogging as well as its business trend. I would describe his blogs very informative, helpful and very useful for those bloggers who are still in the beginning phase. Frequent visits are highlighted with an average of about 20-25 comments per blog.

Oh, and one more thing. Great blogs.

Features

The last but not the least of the three elements that I care about, is the website’s features. Here in problogger.net, I found two basic features that does not take out visitors from the website’s very content; the “search box’ and the information about RSS. For me, the website simply focuses on its content and the features does not entirely, nor partly, take away some of the visitor’s attention. I find this more effective on weblogs since it does not make any distraction at all when you are trying to deliver the blogs of your own.

A simple quick search would definitely get it done and the information about RSS is a plus since it is new and the majority of online users have a little knowledge about its usability.

Overall

Simple yet very informative; those are the words that I can describe problogger.net. Mr. Rowse did his homework into drawing out the attention of the reader from the whole vibe of the website to the importance of its content. This site does explore the means on how to improve vastly to become a “pro blogger” from the just-starting-out blogger. I can definitely say that the word “help”, or specifically “blogging help”, has a new meaning and its problogger.net

The verdict

4 stars

Tags: The ProBlogger

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 6:37 am and is filed under Articles & Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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